In a Winter, Names were chosen
by ARCDiscover
Summary: It is the night her parents get killed because of her. She also gets her name. Rated T because paranoid.


Ivan gave the sign so Alexei threw his torchlight and Dimitri did the same with his. Soon the fire was burning though it was slightly snowing and it was cold. The fire didn't care much, obviously. The people inside the house did. Soon Ivan Petrovich Bezukhov - or how everyone called him: just Ivan Petrovich – grabbed a bucket of water which was ice cold and not long to be frozen and ran towards the building. It should seem like they were trying to save the family, when in fact, they just tried to get the child. The KGB - which was in fact not really disbanded – and Russia was in need for a new generation of soldiers and spies. The Red Room, the facility in which the group of four men, Ivan, Alexei, Dimitri and himself, Vlad, worked, was perfect to train those children who would be found worthy by them.

The house came to life. While at sleep the family didn't noticed the fire and now it was almost too late. When following Ivan, Vlad noticed something odd about the building, it seemed almost familiar to him. Standing next to Ivan who still held the bucket, he nodded, while he knew somewhere behind him, Alexei would watch out while Dimitri went to grab the machine guns hidden in the car. Vlad nodded once to Ivan who then spilled the bucket over the both of them. It was extremely cold but it was needed because soon they would walk into a much hotter region. Vlad kicked the door in and soon noticed that the torches were thrown perfectly to keep the parents from doing something like walking out of the backdoor. "Help my wife and my daughter!" suddenly a voice said next to them. Vlad nodded while Ivan joined the man in 'putting out the fire' while in reality he knew Vlad could fulfil the task and just waited for Dimitri to arrive with the weapons. His intention wasn't to give the child a bad image of them.

Vlad remembered how they first laid eyes upon her. It had been one night ago, on a ballet performance in Volgograd. Funny how destiny led them here to get her - they had just been to Volgograd because they wanted to visit an ill comrade who was an uncle to one of the performers and so they ended up watching the show. Then they laid eyes upon her, not knowing her name but seeing the brilliance in the four-year-old and the beauty she would become. They needed her and they all shared a look of silent agreement before they passed off their comrade and followed the unknowing family home.

Vlad knew just how wrong it was and the feeling grew even bigger when he first looked into her eyes and she really looked back. Childish innocence, hope and trust lied in those big and colorful eyes. Oh how they would end this innocence and break her trust. "Come on, out here!" he said to the woman, before he noticed that she was already stuck. Her foot was stuck in parts of the ceiling that came down before. The child clutched even further to her mother when he said that. A loud crack reminded him – he too should get out of here soon. "You have to get her out of here. Please, Natalia, go with the man! He will save you!" Her red hair was striking and those big eyes watery as she stared up to him and suddenly he felt so unworthy of what he did here. It was too late now – at least too late for the family and for her peaceful life. He held out his hand and after a second she grabbed it – not quite realizing that this meant leaving her mother and her father forever. As Vlad nodded to the woman and was about to turn she said one last thing: "Just remember that this family has thought it has lost his last daughter but look here now – she is the last one in line." The gases must already play with the woman's mind and not wanting to give a dying woman more sense than she had and not to confuse the child he left. "I love you." – "I love you too, Mama." came the confused answer from the red haired child. He could see her confusion on the way her brows were furrowed.

The man next to Ivan looked up and realization hit his face like a sledgehammer. "Good, Natalia, follow him." he then looked to Vlad and the knowing look that escaped this man's eyes gave Vlad a nausea. "I love you, stay safe my brave little girl." – "I love you too." Came her immediate response. As Vlad led her outside the room he saw Dimitri walking towards them, guns in hand. Vlad walked faster to keep her from hearing the things that would happen soon. "Aliana!" he heard the man call his wife in desperation before he heard very dim shots out of the machine gun. Natalia froze but Vlad pulled her further out in the garden, to the gate where Alexei was waiting. The boy, a Shostakov was just ten or eleven and helped to look a bit less conspicuous and he was integrated with doing things like cleaning their rifles or help cooking meals and watching for people who could mean trouble. Vlad nodded in direction to the car and Alexei pulled a blanket out of the trunk in which they sat down the child on the backseat. Vlad sat down right to her and Alexei who always wanted to sit next to the driver sat down next to Natalia.

Vlad let his mind wander around to the last words of Natalia's parents. What they did had been so cruel and he wished he could reverse it and facing what was about to come for her he wanted it even more. 'Just remember that this family has thought it has lost his last daughter but look here now – she is the last one in line.' Maybe it was just the last words of a dying woman but to him it meant more – even more as he looked into her face again, those eyes and her red hair he knew now at what it reminded him. When Ivan and Dimitri were in the front seats and the engine started Ivan turned, faced Natalia, smiled and asked "What is your name?" – she didn't answer. Has realization hit her that hard that she lost parts of her memory? It seemed like that. She wanted to talk and the "Nat…alia." came out but from there on it was gone. Natalia – born on Christmas. It was a name often given to the children born on 7th January. Ivan looked to Vlad. "What is your whole name?" he asked again. Natalia just shook her head – she didn't know.

"Her name is Natalia Alianovna Romanova." If Alianovna hadn't been her second name already it was now in memorial to the fierce woman who tried for her daughter even during the realization that she was being kidnapped. Her acting for the daughter in the hope she would live long enough to turn her life one day and who knew? Maybe the girl could shrug off these negative things that would happen to her one day.

"There last names were different…" Dimitri threw in but Ivan cut him off. "Yes, but Vlad here caught a glimpse of a family we brought great disaster to – more than both of us could witness. If he says so it will be her name. Who knows? Maybe it is not wrong." while Dimitri stared through the front glass in disbelief while driving Vlad watched the way Ivan admired Natalia, somehow and maybe… maybe she had a change at surviving, though the name brought great disaster over the family of rulers that lost their heirs long time. Maybe she could turn and hopefully she would.

He hoped that she would hate him for what he did tonight. He hoped she would kill him before any other person would do it because she had all the right. But maybe he could make Ivan love her before that so she would have a friend in high positions – then again, he already did.

He wondered what history would tell about this night, about his guilt and what history would tell their children about her if she lived.

'Natalia Alianovna Romanova.'


End file.
